How to find an amazing teacher to manage a summer camp

[LegoPanda]

Anyone have any ideas where we could find a good manager for our residential tech summer camps starting July 27 for four weeks? We had taken on a new one who has unfortunately pulled out. Posting here as it would be perfect for a teacher - perhaps one with grown up kids (or younger ones who love tech and want to come too!). We're ideally looking for someone (or a couple of people) who can do at least a couple of weeks each, if not the full four.

There's some more info here: https://www.techcamp.org.uk/info/vacancies (look for the residential manager job description).

All training provided. Needs someone well-organised and confident with a group of kids.

Any thoughts appreciated (or do send us a PM yourself if you think it suits you or want to ask more about it.)

Most of us are so busy in term that the thought of giving up so much of our precious summer holiday might be quite unappealing. We need the rest to recharge our batteries and see our own children. Probably stating the obvious but have you contacted supply agencies? Those on supply don't have an income in the summer holiday and could push back their own holiday.

You could approach Teach First as they encourage their participants to do a summer internship. I think their official programme has closed for summer 2024 but they might be willing to publicise the vacancy to their network. You could also approach the teacher training departments of the local universities and your local teaching school hub. I was certainly open to summer work at the beginning of my career when I was young, broke and child-free!

Thanks @Philandbill and @ThanksItHasPockets - appreciated. Completely appreciate the value of holidays to teachers. We've sometimes had teachers do a couple of weeks at a time as most wouldn't want to do the full season but we're up to sharing the role. Will definitely try those ideas - thanks!

Having looked at the hours and pay, this appears to be paid at around minimum wage. Not exactly attractive.

I'd have loved this when I was a younger teacher.

Try jointing teacher Facebook groups and post on there there are general support and subject ones

There is one called exit the classroom and thrive - you'd need to contact admin to see you can post the vacany

@Philandbill not everyone is a tired out parent who needs 6 weeks off!

Thanks @thedendrochronologist - helpful suggestion. @rosesinmygarden : I appreciate that it's a busy job and not for everyone - it looks like long hours on paper but there's actually big chunks of the day - around 6 hours when the kids are in classes in particular, but actually at other points when kids are in activities as well in the evening - that the manager isn't actively on duty. If you take the time from when you're first working until you clock off that night it would appear to be an enormously long day but the manager manages there own time off during this time.

Fair enough. They're not 'off work' at those points (are they?) so would need to be being paid for their time. This brings the rate of pay well below what a qualified teacher would expect to earn.

It wouldn't suit me but may well attract someone without a family or other responsibilities.

Yes - there are large portions of the day that are off work and only on call. It's not feasible to go into the intricacies of the contract here but it's one of the first things we discuss with people in interviews. We've had many teachers before as managers but you're right that it's not normally those with young families as staying away from home doesn't usually work (unless the kids come to camp as well which sometimes happens if they're interested in the sort of courses we run).

They can't go out for the day though can they, so it's not proper time off, they're working. If you can't recruit, it's usually pay that's the problem.

This is exactly my point.

Being on call means you have to be available and on site ready to work, surely?

You are both completely right. They do have to stay on site as the manager. We run a 5 night on / 2 night off cycle. As some have said already it tends to attract teachers who are newer to the profession and are at a stage of life where they're happy to do an on-site role away from home. It's definitely not everyone's cup of tea and we make it clear to people what the role involves.

The pay scale for this goes up to £1100 per week which is already ahead of anything else in the summer camp industry but again I can see this might not be everyone's idea of great pay, particularly if they don't want to stay on site, or if they're a more senior teacher who's going to pay a lot more to HMRC for working in their time off!

We've had quite a bit of private feedback as well now (and tried out some of the helpful suggestions re: teacher agencies and the like - thanks!) - and for most teachers who don't want a job like this it's often mainly down to either not finding the on-site residential role attractive as you say, or wanting time off in the school holidays which we can also completely appreciate. I used to be a teacher myself and I really looked forward to the holidays after a very intense job in the term.

Thanks again for all the comments and feedback - it's been really helpful to gain an insight into thoughts from you all.

Like I say it would have been great for me 20 years ago. Recently qualified and saving for a deposit whilst living with parents.

Hope you find your candidate!

neutral

Would it be worth contacting teacher training colleges/unis?

I used to run holiday playschemes for a local charity while I was training to be a teacher. Not overnight, but I'd have considered it. Brilliant experience too.

Thanks for that suggestion - we've tried that with one or two and got some applicants but so far they've all not had much experience working with children and have usually been straight from university or don't have much (if any) experience working with other adults. We are ideally looking for someone with at least some experience working in a school or at least another job if we're getting them managing others. We do employ more junior assistants as well though so it might be a good route for them to get more experience and hopefully develop them as a potential manager in the future - will explore this a bit more.

Is this even lawful? It looks to me like 14 hours a day, 6 days a week and that works out at £10.52 per hour.You understand that oncall time where you require the employee to be on site counts as working time?

What you are saying is indeed the case at a typical job at a day camp.

It really doesn't work that way at residential venues where you provide a place to sleep. If you considered it the way that you are, someone like a housemaster at a boarding school would be considered as needing to be paid minimum wage every our of a 24 hours a day when they are on call. No organisation can afford to pay people this way. You can read more about how this works on the government site : https://www.gov.uk/minimum-wage-different-types-work.

Plus some of those days the hours are different and there are other times off. Not really feasible to go into the details here but suffice to say we are always conscious of the hard work of all the staff and the need for time off.

Believe it or not you're actually allowed to deduct accommodation costs from people's wages as well. We wouldn't dream of doing this as it seems crazy to us, as the only reason you're accommodating people is so they can do the job.

For what it's worth, the feedback we've got is the pay is definitely not the problem; at up to £1100 a week, it's way above anything else in the summer camp industry (feel free to Google). The feedback is mainly that most teachers understandably don't want to spend all holidays working as well as term time.

I do appreciate your point of view though. Thanks also to all the ideas from people here - we've now had lots of people apply from both inside and outside of the education sector so don't think we're going to struggle to fill it now.

Eh, that makes no sense. If people don't want to to do a job, it is the pay that's the problem. The people you ask may genuinely not want to do the job, even if the pay was much higher, for a variety of reasons. But if you were offering £50k for a summer of work, someone would want to do it. That's the nature of the employment market, it's always a case of persuading someone who is a suitable candidate that what you are offering is worth their while. If what you're offering isn't very attractive, or it doesn't appeal to a wide pool of suitably qualified people, the way to counteract the unattractiveness of it is through pay. You're running a business, you know how this works right? You want teachers who have experience of managing other adults. That usually comes with at least 5 years experience and a TLR. So you're looking at beating an annual hourly wage of £25 an hour at least. Plus they're giving up their holiday, away from family and friends etc, so it's really got to beat their usual hourly rate of pay. So let's say £35. Plus they could likely volunteer at their own school's summer school for a few days instead, they wouldn't need to stay away from home, or miss out on whatever their friends are up to over the summer. So you're competing with that, and the lucrative tutoring market, which is much easier money. Is what you're offering really that attractive when you consider all the issues and the alternatives? That's not a hypothetical, you know that what you're offering isn't attractive enough, as you can't recruit.

Sorry if I was unclear in the last message but we've now had a large amount of interest in the position from both direct messages and leads from all the really helpful suggestions here on mumsnet. It was more about avenues for reaching out than anything else and we really appreciate all the suggestions. We have a large pool of shortlisted candidates now. Thanks so much for everyone's ideas and suggestions.